The cover of the December 1999 issue, American Theatre, asks "What's Going on in Kira Obolensky's Head?"

The cover of the December 1999 issue, American Theatre, asks "What's Going on in Kira Obolensky's Head?"

New York audiences will find out with the Manhattan debut of Lobster Alice, her unique vision of the creative process, beginning performances by Playwrights Horizons Dec. 17.

The play, set for an official opening of Jan. 9, is loosely based on fact and concerns an uptight Hollywood animator who becomes inspired by a visit from surrealist painter Salvador Dali, in 1946 Tinseltown.

Jessica Hecht, who turned characters' nervous energy into indelible performances in Last Night at Ballyhoo and Stop Kiss, will play Alice, assistant to animator John Finch (Reg Rogers, late of Classic Stage Co.'s Look Back in Anger).

The famously mustachioed painter, Dali, will be played by David Patrick Kelly, of "Twin Peaks" and Lincoln Center Theatre's Twelfth Night. Derek Richardson makes his Off-Broadway debut playing the parts of Thurton and Caterpillar. Maria Mileaf, who has staged Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway shows and regional productions (Art at Chicago's Royal George Theatre), directs Lobster Alice.

The play had its premiere in September 1999 at the Jungle Theatre in Minneapolis. The work has its seeds in research nonfiction writer Obolensky was doing a few years ago: She read that Dali visited the Walt Disney studios for discussions about a animated picture that was never produced. According to "American Theatre" magazine, Dali's supervisor at Disney would work on one of Disney's most surreal and hallucinogenic pictures, "Alice in Wonderland."

Performances for what is called a limited engagement continue to Jan. 23, 2000, at the Playwrights Horizons mainstage, 416 W. 42nd St.